Picturing self-harm: Investigating flash-forward mental imagery as a proximal and modifiable driver of non-suicidal self-injury.

OBJECTIVES: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is theorized to be reinforced by its emotional consequences. Mental images of NSSI are commonly reported as occurring prior to NSSI. Based on the known functional properties of anticipatory mental imagery as an emotional and motivational amplifier, this study investigated whether NSSI mental imagery constitutes a proximal and dynamic mechanism underpinning NSSI risk. METHOD: An intensive ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study was conducted to track the occurrence and characteristics of NSSI mental imagery alongside NSSI urge and behavior in naturalistic settings. A sample of N = 43 individuals aged 17 to 24 with a history of repetitive NSSI completed EMA surveys seven times a day for 14 days. RESULTS: Mental preoccupation in the form of NSSI mental imagery-based flash-forwards to the actions, bodily sensations, and emotional benefits of NSSI was found to occur when NSSI urge was high but not when urge was low. Critically, objective cross-panel analyses showed that higher frequencies of NSSI imagery occurrence predicted greater future NSSI urge and increased likelihood of acting on urge, over and above current urge. CONCLUSIONS: Mental imagery of NSSI is not simply an epiphenomenal by-product of NSSI urge and may constitute a dynamic and proximal novel intervention target.

The Neural Basis of a Cognitive Function That Suppresses the Generation of Mental Imagery: Evidence from a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

This study elucidated the brain regions associated with the perception-driven suppression of mental imagery generation by comparing brain activation in a picture observation condition with that in a positive imagery generation condition. The assumption was that mental imagery generation would be suppressed in the former condition but not in the latter. The results show significant activation of the left posterior cingulate gyrus (PCgG) in the former condition compared to in the latter condition. This finding is generally consistent with a previous study showing that the left PCgG suppresses mental imagery generation. Furthermore, correlational analyses showed a significant correlation between the activation of the left PCgG and participants' subjective richness ratings, which are a measure of the clarity of a presented picture. Increased activity in the PCgG makes it more difficult to generate mental imagery. As visual perceptual processing and visual imagery generation are in competition, the suppression of mental imagery generation leads to enhanced visual perceptual processing. In other words, the greater the suppression of mental imagery, the clearer the presented pictures are perceived. The significant correlation found is consistent with this idea. The current results and previous studies suggest that the left PCgG plays a role in suppressing the generation of mental imagery.

Does context matter for memory? Testing the effectiveness of learning by imagining situated interactions with objects.

Mounting evidence supports the efficacy of mental imagery for verbal information retention. Motor imagery, imagining oneself interacting physically with the object to be learned, emerges as an optimal form compared to less physically engaging imagery. Yet, when engaging in mental imagery, it occurs within a specific context that may affect imagined actions and consequently impact the mnemonic benefits of mental imagery. In a first study, participants were given instructions for incidental learning: mental rehearsal, visual imagery, motor imagery or situated motor imagery. The latter, which involved imagining physical interaction with an item within a coherent situation, produced the highest proportion of correct recalls. This highlights memory's role in supporting situated actions and offers the possibility for further developing the mnemonic potential of embodied mental imagery. Furthermore, item-level analysis showed that individuals who engaged in situated motor imagery remembered words primarily due to the sensorimotor characteristics of the words' referent. A second study investigating the role of inter-item distinctiveness in this effect failed to determine the extent to which the situational and motor elements need to be distinctive in order to be considered useful retrieval cues and produce an optimal memory performance.

Aphantasia and involuntary imagery.

Aphantasia is a condition that is often characterized as the impaired ability to create voluntary mental images. Aphantasia is assumed to selectively affect voluntary imagery mainly because even though aphantasics report being unable to visualize something at will, many report having visual dreams. We argue that this common characterization of aphantasia is incorrect. Studies on aphantasia are often not clear about whether they are assessing voluntary or involuntary imagery, but some studies show that several forms of involuntary imagery are also affected in aphantasia (including imagery in dreams). We also raise problems for two attempts to show that involuntary images are preserved in aphantasia. In addition, we report the results of a study about afterimages in aphantasia, which suggest that these tend to be less intense in aphantasics than in controls. Involuntary imagery is often treated as a unitary kind that is either present or absent in aphantasia. We suggest that this approach is mistaken and that we should look at different types of involuntary imagery case by case. Doing so reveals no evidence of preserved involuntary imagery in aphantasia. We suggest that a broader characterization of aphantasia, as a deficit in forming mental imagery, whether voluntary or not, is more appropriate. Characterizing aphantasia as a volitional deficit is likely to lead researchers to give incorrect explanations for aphantasia, and to look for the wrong mechanisms underlying it.

Slower but more accurate mental rotation performance in aphantasia linked to differences in cognitive strategies.

Mental rotation tasks are frequently used as standard measures of mental imagery. However, aphantasia research has brought such use into question. Here, we assessed a large group of individuals who lack visual imagery (aphantasia) on two mental rotation tasks: a three-dimensional block-shape, and a human manikin rotation task. In both tasks, those with aphantasia had slower, but more accurate responses than controls. Both groups demonstrated classic linear increases in response time and error-rate as functions of angular disparity. In the three-dimensional block-shape rotation task, a within-group speed-accuracy trade-off was found in controls, whereas faster individuals in the aphantasia group were also more accurate. Control participants generally favoured using object-based mental rotation strategies, whereas those with aphantasia favoured analytic strategies. These results suggest that visual imagery is not crucial for successful performance in classical mental rotation tasks, as alternative strategies can be effectively utilised in the absence of holistic mental representations.

Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment.

How do people evaluate causal relationships? Do they just consider what actually happened, or do they also consider what could have counterfactually happened? Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, we investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur. Participants played a virtual ball-shooting game and then-while looking at a blank screen-mentally simulated (a) what actually happened, (b) what counterfactually could have happened, or (c) what caused the outcome to happen. Our findings showed that participants moved their eyes in patterns consistent with the actual or counterfactual events that they mentally simulated. When simulating what caused the outcome to occur, participants moved their eyes consistent with simulations of counterfactual possibilities. These results favor counterfactual theories of causal reasoning, demonstrate how eye movements can reflect simulation during this reasoning and provide a novel approach for investigating retrospective causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking.

Associations between Autistic-like Traits and Imagery Ability.

This article examines empirical associations between qualities of the imagination, mental imagery, and cognitive abilities with special reference to autism. This study is the first to explore the empirical relationships between autistic-like traits and tests of imagery differences. Imaginative impairments and distinctive sensory characteristics in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) should be reflected in their interactions with mental imagery. However, the relationship between ASD and imaging traits remains unclear. Based on the hypothesis that the degree of autistic-like traits is reflected in imagery traits, this study examined how the individual Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) relates to imagery ability in 250 college students. Two vividness tests and one imagery-type test were used to assess imagery ability. Scores in each imagery test were compared between the high-scoring group classified by the AQ and the rest of the participants and between the low-scoring group classified by the AQ and the other participants. This study also directly compared imagery test scores between the high- and low-scoring groups. In terms of the total AQ score, the high-scoring group exhibited lower visualization scores. Regarding AQ subscales, "imagination" had the most extensive relationship with imagery traits, with the high-scoring group (unimaginative) showing lower imagery vividness across various modalities as well as lower visualization and verbalization scores. This was followed by the "attention to detail" subscale, on which the high-scoring group (attentive to detail) showed higher vividness of visual imagery. The results of the low-scoring group exhibited, on the whole, opposite imagery tendencies to the high-scoring group. The results indicate that autistic-like traits are associated with qualities of the imagination and especially mental imagery ability.

Mental Imagery in the Relationship between Alexithymia and Parental Psychological Control.

This study aims to explore the mediating role of mental imagery in the relationship between alexithymia and parental psychological control among Chinese university students. Conducted between March and April 2023, this descriptive study involved 282 volunteer participants from a university in southern China. Data collection included the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the Parental Psychological Control Scale (PPC), and the Vividness of Visual Mental Imagery questionnaire (VVIQ). The results revealed that: (1) based on established cut-off, 81 students were identified as highly alexithymic; (2) the alexithymia group scored higher on both the TAS and PPC and lower on the VVIQ compared to the non-alexithymia and possible-alexithymia groups; and (3) mediating analysis demonstrated a strong and positive correlation between parental psychological control and alexithymia for all participants, with visual mental imagery mediating this relationship. This study underscores the interconnectedness of parental psychological control, visual mental imagery, and alexithymia among college students. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are also discussed.

Reduced body-image disturbance by body-image interventions is associated with neural-response changes in visual and social processing regions: a preliminary study.

Introduction: Body-image disturbance is a major factor in the development of eating disorders, especially among young women. There are two main components: perceptual disturbance, characterized by a discrepancy between perceived and actual body size, and affective disturbance, characterized by a discrepancy between perceived and ideal body size. Interventions targeting body-image disturbance ask individuals to describe their own body without using negative expressions when either viewing it in a mirror or imagining it. Despite the importance of reducing body-image disturbance, its neural mechanisms remain unclear. Here we investigated the changes in neural responses before and after an intervention. We hypothesized that neural responses correlated with the degree of body-image disturbance would also be related to its reduction, i.e., a reduction in perceptual and affective disturbances would be related to changes in attentional and socio-cognitive processing, respectively. Methods: Twenty-eight young adult women without known psychiatric disorders underwent a single 40-min intervention. Participants completed tasks before and after the intervention, in which they estimated their perceived and ideal body sizes using distorted silhouette images to measure body-image disturbance. We analyzed the behavioral and neural responses of participants during the tasks. Results: The intervention did not significantly reduce body-image disturbance. Analysis of individual differences showed distinct changes in neural responses for each type of disturbance. A decrease in perceptual disturbance was associated with bodily visuospatial processing: increased activation in the left superior parietal lobule, bilateral occipital gyri, and right cuneus. Reduced affective disturbance was associated with socio-cognitive processing; decreased activation in the right temporoparietal junction, and increased functional connectivity between the left extrastriate body area and the right precuneus. Discussion: We identified distinct neural mechanisms (bodily visuospatial and socio-cognitive processing) associated with the reduction in each component of body-image disturbance. Our results imply that different neural mechanisms are related to reduced perceptual disturbance and the expression thereof, whereas similar neural mechanisms are related to the reduction and expression of affective disturbance. Considering the small sample size of this study, our results should be regarded as preliminary.

Demystifying wine expertise through the lens of imagination: Descriptions and imagery vividness across sensory modalities.

For most untrained novices, talking about wine or imagining the smells and flavours of wine is difficult. Wine experts, on the other hand, have been found to have better imagery for wine, and are also more proficient in describing wine. Some scholars have suggested that imagery and language are based on similar underlying processes, but no conclusive evidence has been found regarding mental imagery and language production. In this study, we examined the relationship between imagery and language use in both novices and experts. In an online experiment, wine experts and novices were asked to imagine the colour, smell, taste and mouthfeel of wines in different situations, and were asked to rate the vividness of the imagined experience as well as describe it with words. The results show that experts differ from novices on a number of linguistic measures when describing wine, including the number of words used, the type of words used, the concreteness of those words, and the adjective to noun ratio. Similarly, imagery for wine was more vivid in wine experts compared to novices in the modalities of smell, taste, and mouthfeel, in alignment with previous work. Surprisingly, we found that no single linguistic variable significantly predicted the reported vividness of wine imagery, neither in experts nor in novices. However, the linguistic model predicted imagery vividness better using data from experts compared to novices. Taken together, these findings underscore that imagery and language are different facets of wine cognition.

On the relationship between foveal mask interference and mental imagery in peripheral object recognition.

A delayed foveal mask affects perception of peripheral stimuli. The effect is determined by the timing of the mask and by the similarity with the peripheral stimulus. A congruent mask enhances performance, while an incongruent one impairs it. It is hypothesized that foveal masks disrupt a feedback mechanism reaching the foveal cortex. This mechanism could be part of a broader circuit associated with mental imagery, but this hypothesis has not as yet been tested. We investigated the link between mental imagery and foveal feedback. We tested the relationship between performance fluctuations caused by the foveal mask-measured in terms of discriminability (d') and criterion (C)-and the scores from two questionnaires designed to assess mental imagery vividness (VVIQ) and another exploring object imagery, spatial imagery and verbal cognitive styles (OSIVQ). Contrary to our hypotheses, no significant correlations were found between VVIQ and the mask's impact on d' and C. Neither the object nor spatial subscales of OSIVQ correlated with the mask's impact. In conclusion, our findings do not substantiate the existence of a link between foveal feedback and mental imagery. Further investigation is needed to determine whether mask interference might occur with more implicit measures of imagery.

Neural mechanisms of odour imagery induced by non-figurative visual cues.

Odour imagery, the ability to experience smell when an appropriate stimulus is absent, has widely been documented as being particularly difficult. However, previous studies have shown the beneficial effect of visual cues (e.g., pictures or words) to facilitate performance in numerous tasks of olfactory nature. Therefore, the use of visual cues to evoke odours seems relevant. In this study, our interest is directed towards non-figurative coloured arrangements, which result from a patented technology and aim at chromatically representing any smell from its chemical composition and sensory description. The aim of this study was to characterise the neural mechanisms of odour imagery facilitated by these non-figurative coloured arrangements. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we recorded and compared hemodynamic responses during odour imagery facilitated by non-figurative coloured arrangements and pictures. Our findings reveal that the use of non-figurative coloured arrangements during odour imagery solicits olfactory and non-olfactory brain regions (orbitofrontal cortex, insula, hippocampus, thalamus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and supplementary motor area), which are mainly involved in olfactory processing and multimodal integration. Moreover, very similar cortical activity was found between the use of non-figurative coloured arrangements and pictures during odour imagery, with increased activity in the supplementary motor area during the use of coloured arrangements only. Overall, non-figurative coloured arrangements could become a robust tool to visually evoke odours without requiring prior familiarity with the depicted odour. Future studies should use psychometric measures to determine the relationships between brain activation, odour imagery ability and vividness of the generated odour images.

Imagining emotions in storyworlds: physiological narrated perception and emotional mental imagery.

Research into narrative experiencing acknowledges the role played by mental imagery in readers' emotional responses and feelings of embodiment. In narratives, mental imagery is frequently evoked through narrated perception, or the textual presentation of sensory perception, as in "The silence in the house was complete". Narrated perception spans the five senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste; however, little attention has been paid to the narrated description of characters' basic physiological processes, that is, those connected to the invisible systems - respiratory, digestive, cardio-vascular, muscular - and their relevance to the mental construction of narrative emotions. This study explores the presentation of fictional characters' physiological processes as a prompt for readers' embodied experience of storyworlds through the metonymic activation of self-relevant emotion schemata. To this purpose, the presentation of characters' internal physiological processes in two fictional samples of similar length - Rosemary Timperley's 1955 ghost story "Harry" and chapter one in Ewan McEwan's 2002 novel Atonement - is analysed. The findings suggests that these descriptions enrich the imagined nature of narrative emotions through underspecification, and increase opportunities for perceived self-relevance and engagement.

Neurocognitive mechanisms of mental imagery-based disgust learning.

Disgust imagery represents a potential pathological mechanism for disgust-related disorders. However, it remains controversial as to whether disgust can be conditioned with disgust-evoking mental imagery serving as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Therefore, we examined this using a conditioned learning paradigm in combination with event-related potential (ERP) analysis in 35 healthy college students. The results indicated that the initial neutral face (conditioned stimulus, CS+) became more disgust-evoking, unpleasant, and arousing after pairing with disgust-evoking imagery (disgust CS+), compared to pairing with neutral (neutral CS+) and no (CS-) imagery. Moreover, we observed that mental imagery-based disgust conditioning was resistant to extinction. While the disgust CS + evoked larger P3 and late positive potential amplitudes than CS- during acquisition, no significant differences were found between disgust CS+ and neutral CS+, indicating a dissociation between self-reported and neurophysiological responses. Future studies may additionally acquire facial EMG as an implicit index of conditioned disgust. This study provides the first neurobiological evidence that associative disgust learning can occur without aversive physical stimuli, with implications for understanding how disgust-related disorders may manifest or deteriorate without external perceptual aversive experiences, such as in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The role of visual imagery in story reading: Evidence from aphantasia.

Aphantasia is a condition in which people are unable to experience visual imagery. Since visual imagery is thought to be key to language processing, we hypothesized the experience of a story would differ between individuals with aphantasia and controls. Forty-seven individuals with aphantasia were compared to fifty-one matched controls on their experience of reading a short story and their general reading habits. Aphantasics were less likely to be engaged with, interested in, and absorbed in the story, and experienced reduced emotional engagement with and sympathy for the story characters, compared to controls. Yet, aphantasics and controls did not differ in how much they liked or appreciated the story, and in general, the reading habits of the two groups also did not differ. Results have implications for embodied theories of language, suggesting visual imagery may influence how a story is experienced, but it is not the only route to story enjoyment.

Seeing as Feeling? The Impact of Tactile Compensation Videos on Consumer Purchase Intention.

The lack of tactile experience is a significant flaw in online product evaluation and purchasing, but visual information can be utilized to compensate for tactile deficits. This study constructed a conceptual model based on mental imagery theory, innovativeness theory, and the personal goals framework, to explore the mechanism of visual-tactile compensation on consumer purchase intention. We conducted an online experiment with 406 participants recruited from a community and online store in Southern China and tested the research hypotheses using structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that visually compensated tactile perceived diagnosticity promotes mental imagery and sensory similarity, which, in turn, affects purchase intention. Theoretically, this study enriches the current explanations of online haptics by explaining the mechanisms by which haptic demonstration videos influence consumers' haptic evaluations and behavioral responses, as well as the moderating role of personal goals therein; practically, this study offers advice for retailers seeking to build or expand their tactile marketing strategies.

Visual mental imagery: Evidence for a heterarchical neural architecture.

Theories of Visual Mental Imagery (VMI) emphasize the processes of retrieval, modification, and recombination of sensory information from long-term memory. Yet, only few studies have focused on the behavioral mechanisms and neural correlates supporting VMI of stimuli from different semantic domains. Therefore, we currently have a limited understanding of how the brain generates and maintains mental representations of colors, faces, shapes - to name a few. Such an undetermined scenario renders unclear the organizational structure of neural circuits supporting VMI, including the role of the early visual cortex. We aimed to fill this gap by reviewing the scientific literature of five semantic domains: visuospatial, face, colors, shapes, and letters imagery. Linking theory to evidence from over 60 different experimental designs, this review highlights three main points. First, there is no consistent activity in the early visual cortex across all VMI domains, contrary to the prediction of the dominant model. Second, there is consistent activity of the frontoparietal networks and the left hemisphere's fusiform gyrus during voluntary VMI irrespective of the semantic domain investigated. We propose that these structures are part of a domain-general VMI sub-network. Third, domain-specific information engages specific regions of the ventral and dorsal cortical visual pathways. These regions partly overlap with those found in visual perception studies (e.g., fusiform face area for faces imagery; lingual gyrus for color imagery). Altogether, the reviewed evidence suggests the existence of domain-general and domain-specific mechanisms of VMI selectively engaged by stimulus-specific properties (e.g., colors or faces). These mechanisms would be supported by an organizational structure mixing vertical and horizontal connections (heterarchy) between sub-networks for specific stimulus domains. Such a heterarchical organization of VMI makes different predictions from current models of VMI as reversed perception. Our conclusions set the stage for future research, which should aim to characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics and interactions among key regions of this architecture giving rise to visual mental images.

Where's Wanda? The influence of visual imagery vividness on visual search speed measured by means of hidden object pictures.

Previous research demonstrated effects of visual imagery on search speed in visual search paradigms. However, these effects were rather small, questioning their ecological validity. Thus, our present study aimed to generalize these effects to more naturalistic material (i.e., a paradigm that allows for top-down strategies in highly complex visual search displays that include overlapping stimuli while simultaneously avoiding possibly confounding search instructions). One hundred and four participants with aphantasia (= absence of voluntary mental imagery) and 104 gender and age-matched controls were asked to find hidden objects in several hidden object pictures with search times recorded. Results showed that people with aphantasia were significantly slower than controls, even when controlling for age and general processing speed. Thus, effects of visual imagery might be strong enough to influence the perception of our real-life surroundings, probably because of the involvement of visual imagery in several top-down strategies.

Positive mental imagery and mental health amongst university students in Pakistan.

Mental health problems amongst university students pose a major public health challenge, and this is particularly the case in Pakistan. Alongside broader societal and cultural pressures, cognitive factors likely also play a role in the development of and resilience to mental health problems and may provide a feasible target for interventions. The current study built on previous research in primarily European samples investigating the relationship between one cognitive factor, positive future-oriented mental imagery, and mental health, extending this to a sample of university students in Pakistan (N = 1838). In a cross-sectional design, higher vividness of positive future-oriented mental imagery was associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms and higher levels of positive mental health amongst participants completing questionnaire measures on paper (N = 1430) or online (N = 408). In the sample completing the measures on paper, these relationships remained statistically significant even when controlling for socio-demographic and mental health-related variables. The results provide a foundation for further investigating positive mental imagery as a potential mechanism of mental health and intervention target amongst university students in Pakistan.

The role of dopamine in visual imagery-An experimental pharmacological study.

Mental imagery enables people to simulate experiences in their minds without the presence of an external stimulus. The underlying biochemical mechanisms are poorly understood but there is vague evidence that dopamine may play a significant role. A better understanding at the biochemical level could help to unravel the mechanisms of mental imagery and related phenomena such as aphantasia (= lack of voluntary mental imagery), but also opens up possibilities for interventions to enhance or restore mental imagery. To test the hypothesis that acute dopamine depletion leads to a decrease in the strength of mental imagery, N = 22 male participants will be administered an amino acid mixture containing branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) and tryptophan (TRP) to transiently reduce dopamine synthesis and further N = 22 male participants will receive a placebo. Plasma prolactin (PRL) levels are determined as a peripheral marker of brain dopamine function. The strength of mental imagery will be measured before and after ingestion of the BCAA/TRP mixture using the method of mental imagery priming. Additional exploratory analyses will use genetic data to investigate possible effects of variations on dopaminergic gene loci (e.g., DAT1) on dopamine levels and strength of mental imagery. The results show […].